I have to say, I didn’t quite expect a real job to require sending out so many emails. But so far that seems to be 90 percent of what I’ve done as the Gladeo League Managing Editor.

However that’s neither here nor there. We may have had a meeting today, but I’m not looking to talk about that in this blog post.

I also don’t really want to talk about my physical before that, since the only significant take-away is how much my arm hurts because of the two shots I got.

Also the fact that I haven’t lost any weight since last year, I suppose. But I prefer to look at it as I haven’t gained any weight either.

So yay for starting exercising regularly!

No, today I’m just going to talk real quick about one of those staple first week of school traditions:

Marking down dates and creating binders.

Typically I’ll go to school for the first week with a smaller messenger bag rather than my big backpack. Every class usually just spends the time going over syllabi and starting the first basic lectures, after all. So I usually only need my laptop and a notebook.

I’ll usually use the notebook that later becomes my homework agenda for the semester.

Once the first week is through and I have all of my syllabi compiled, I spend a day going through them all and jotting down the major dates (exams, research papers, etc.) on my wall calendar.

Naturally all of the big things wind up mostly lining up in December, but this semester I do have a few papers scheduled to be due in November and my exams are scattered throughout the few final months.

By this point I usually have all of my textbooks ordered and delivered considering Cal State Fullerton lists all of the required texts online.

Chegg is pretty cheap and quick when it comes to rentals, in my experience.

With the important dates established and my books ready and waiting, next comes my personal favorite step in the process: Setting up the binders.

Kirby and Rowlet chillin’ in the back.

My philosophy on how to create each binder for my classes varies from semester-to-semester. Sometimes my professors will require a single binder to be devoted to their coursework, sometimes they’ll even have specific divisions in mind within said binder.

Those are the fun professors. Especially when they require binder checks throughout the semester.

Thought you got away from that requirement in middle school?

Think again.

Luckily, none of my classes have those stipulations this semester. So I’m free to build everything the way I want.

Thus I’ve decided to create two primary binders for this semester.

One will be my psychology binder. I’m taking two psych classes and both seem like they’ll have a significant amount of notes and assignments to keep track of. So I’m going to keep them together, which should hopefully be extra helpful considering how much overlap Sensation/Perception and Learning/Memory will have.

My second binder with be focused on Comm courses and include a section for my one honors class. Both of my Comm classes are one-day-a-week and probably won’t have as much overall bulk as the rest despite being three-hour classes each. Figure I can throw in my also not very hefty honors workload and it shouldn’t be too much trouble.

Sometimes I’ll set up my binders to correspond with days of the week, that way I only have to bring one a day and keep the weight off my back. But this semester everything is a little jumbled, so it’ll make more sense to go by connected classes.

With that said, everything comes together and all I’ll have left to worry about is translating my first day notes from my notebook onto lined paper so it can fit into my lecture note tabs. Wherever those wind up.

Because even if I’ve already done the work once, continuity means enough to me that I’ll copy it all over again.

But perhaps not right now. There are monsters to hunt, after all.

Focused on the hunt.

If you’re still going to school, how do you like to prepare your supplies? Or I suppose for work if that question also applies there.

It may only be a year after we were first introduced to the Alola region in Pokémon Sun and Moon… But as a self-proclaimed hardcore Pokémon fanatic, I simply couldn’t resist going out to get the next addition to the series on day one.

I’ll admit, it does help that my Mom agreed to help pay off half the cost as sort of an early holiday gift. I was going to do it anyway, though.

Plus, it also helps that Thanksgiving Break has officially started for me, so I have a whole week to start pouring into some Pokémon when I’m not doing whatever assignments I have.

Or when I’m not writing blog posts like this. I still owe myself one for the three stories I published the week before we left, so hopefully I won’t get too sucked into the game.

That being said, this post is going to be short and sweet because, frankly, I’m really excited to get into Ultra Moon. Because Mega Noivern for life. Also because Alyson is going to play Ultra Sun given she prefers Solgaleo, as evidenced by her McDonald’s Happy Meal toy from the other day:

I can appreciate the glowing eyes, though Rowlet is still my baby boy so I couldn’t resist not getting him, as you can see in the featured image at the top of this post.

I know the games are going to be fairly different than the originals from all of the pre-release trailers, so now I’m going to see just how different they are, and by extension whether they’re more worth going after than the originals.

To be completely honest, one of the big aspects that might sway that decision for me is how much time and effort the Rainbow Rocket team gets. Seriously Game Freak, you better have added in the original theme songs for each villain team boss or I’m going to be so disappointed in you.

Anyway, all that said, I’m going to go play some Pokémon now. Probably expect a few comparison-type posts in the near future as I work through Ultra Moon, or at least expect a team recap by the end of my journey. I still have to decide who I’m going to use after all, since I’m not going to go with the same squad as I used my first go-around.

Those guys are special to my Moon playthrough. I couldn’t just recreate them.

It does make my job harder since there’s a lot of options that are my favorites now excluded… But I’ll figure it out. Probably going to start with Popplio this time around, I think. Because I’m not sure what other Water-type I would want to use if not Wishiwashi, and because… Well, come on.

How freakin adorable, right? Right.

Sorry Litten, you’ll get your time in the spotlight soon enough. There’s just some other Fire-types I want to give a whirl this time around.

Okay, for real this time, I’ll catch you all later. If you got US&UM like me, let me know what you think about the games! I’d love to hear your thoughts somewhere on the internet.

A game series like Pokémon, in which there are over 700 individual characters to choose from when pulling a team together, really lends itself to choosing favorites. Everyone who has ever played a Pokémon game undoubtedly has a favorite monster, be it for their competitive viability, the strength of the character building and lore around them or simply the nostalgia factor.

Personally, my absolute favorite Pokémon of all time is the Hoenn native Psychic-type Gardevoir for a combination of all three. A powerful and feared hyper voice using Mega Evolution with a newly adopted Fairy-typing, a wonderful design alongside descriptors about emotional closeness with the its trainer and a consistent reminder of my childhood days visiting my Grandparent’s house in Florida, playing Pokémon Sapphire and catching a Ralts on Route 102 that would stick with me for the entire journey. I always taught my Gardevoir the move Shock Wave in those days. Not entirely sure why, but I did.

While I don’t know exactly how many Pokémon will be added to the National Pokédex in Generation 7 (As I’m still avoiding the data mining spoilers), I’m going to assume that the total number of monsters will probably top 800 by the time we’ve counted through all of them, from Rowlet to the mysterious Crystalline Prism creature we were shown not too long ago and beyond. That adds a lot of new favorite Pokémon for both series veterans and newcomers to choose from.

In that same vein, I’ve seen many people putting together videos and lists of what Pokémon they’ll be using during their initial journey through the Alola Region. I did the same kind of forward thinking when X and Y were on the horizon, and I’ve honestly been doing the same thing while Pokémon have been unveiled over the last couple of months, so I figure why not talk about them here?

I actually do team building quite often, both for casual gameplay runs and for competitive team planning, something I started to do a lot more in Alpha Sapphire. Typically, I try to follow some personal rules when doing so for either kind of play:

All members of the team will typically be entirely different typings, no overlap whatsoever is preferred for the sake of variety and diversification of moves/abilities.

On occasion, teams may deviate from this rule if the typing diversity in a region isn’t phenomenal when using dual-typings or if there are some Pokémon I can’t avoid using that happen to be the same type.

Usually the exceptions to this rule will only apply once. Mono-type teams tend to be avoided at all costs unless the team is being built specifically for a competition with that rule in place.

The make-up of my teams tend to vary based on region. So, more often than not a play through of Black and White will have a Unova team consisting entirely of Generation 5 Pokémon, a play through of Ruby, Sapphire, Emerald or the remakes will have a Hoenn team consisting entirely of Generation 3 Pokémon and so on.

Rare exceptions do exist for this rule as well, such as in X and Y where I considered Mega Evolutions to be Generation 6 Pokémon. Thus, Mawile was on my initial team despite originating from Hoenn.

Movesets, abilities and items used on each team member are usually decided on with single battles in mind, both for casual play and competitive building. There are a few Pokémon I’ve built competitively that specifically exist to team up with another, however.

While Pokémon can usually be either male or female (besides those with no gender or only one gender option), I tend to specifically pick a gender for a Pokémon that feels right to me and stick with it. Thus, some I might refer to as he or she depending on how I personally picture that monster.

No legendaries. As much as I love legendary Pokémon in their own rights, I’m not a fan of mixing them into my team compositions. Never really have been, it always seemed kind of cheap to me. Sorry Lunala.

These rules are more my own attempts to make my life harder on myself, honestly. Just choosing any Pokémon willy-nilly would be too easy, so it’s more fun to set up rules for myself as a way of encouraging more critical thought as far as building things ahead of time goes.

With that said, and without further adieu, I introduce the six Pokémon that will be accompanying me during my first adventure in Pokémon Moon. Under this read more, naturally. Could be some spoiler-y stuff for people avoiding any and all information, and this post is already taking up a lot of space.

It’s been a fairly big week for Pokémon stuff so far, or at least for me it has been. The demo for Sun and Moon has been far more fun than I expected it to be, showing off some cool content and easily succeeding in its goal of getting me hyped for the game by throwing in small secrets to keep me coming back. Pokémon GO’s Halloween update has gotten me back into playing quite a bit, as I’ve caught at least three Pokémon in the last two days that I hadn’t even seen once in the months before it dropped. I’m getting close to finally completing the Generation 6 puzzle game Pokémon Picross, which I’ve been playing for literally way too long in my stubbornness about not paying for micro transactions to advance myself. On top of all that, probably one of the best Pokémon animations ever made in the history of anything was given to the world last Friday.

Then, this trailer dropped. My god is it a special one, to say the least.

Not only does it officially reveal the final evolutions of the Alolan starter Pokémon (with some plot twists here and there), it also shows off some new Pokémon and a brand new gameplay aspect adding to what already looks like an extensive postgame. Having a week off from my work on the Daily Titan, I have a little bit of extra time to dedicate to this trailer, but I’ve made myself so busy with other stuff that I’m still a bit late. So, let’s jump into it shall we?

I never seem to be on time with these things anymore. Guess that’s just the nature of my life right now. It’s not really that much of a problem since technically we’ve only had new things for a few days, and since I’m really just giving my opinions so it doesn’t much matter how timely I am… But still. I’m hoping it doesn’t annoy anybody out there reading.

Anyway though, we’re not here to talk about my schedule yet again. No, we’re here to talk about some new Pokémon news. Some great news at that, if I do say so myself! Check out my likely over-embellished thoughts below the cut if you want to see whether or not my feelings on the Alolan starter Pokémon have changed in light of recent developments.

Continuing in the order that’s been set by the new Sun and Moon trailer that was released to the public this morning, it’s time to discuss the new Island Challenges system that will be introduced now that we’ve discussed the additional new Pokémon we’ll be seeing in Alola.

Man, it’s been a real busy day. Work on the Daily Titan kept me busy after my classes between an enterprise story we had about graduation rates on campus and our breaking news coverage of a suspicious package bomb threat on campus. Though the bomb threat turned out to be nothing, and I’m grateful for that, it was a little unfortunate that I lost so much time.

Because it took time away from thinking about Pokémon.

Now, you may remember I made a post on April 13th where I essentially complained about Sun and Moon news that was scheduled to be announced getting pushed off until May. I take my Pokémon news very seriously after all, and felt cheated that I’d have to wait another month to hear more about the new games.